The Block Island Race starts today. I have driven, like so many others; route 95 since the sixties to sail this race. It is the hardest part of the race. Each and every race is unique, the weather, current are never the same. Full report when I return.
While there are few surprises in the recommendations, the obvious extra cost is evident. More important, what exactly do the recommendations say about the sport of sailing?
1. AC72Yacht
Regatta Director Recommendations
Issued at 1600 May 22, 2013 (PDT) to AC34 Competitors, Golden Gate Yacht Club, & America’s Cup Event Authority
beyond maximum beam of the Yacht; and
e) elevators permitted to be adjusted until warning signal.
has since been agreed to remove such a person from the boat.
2. PersonalEquipment
investigated by Competitors and managed by ACRM.
advisors.
3. AdditionalSupportEquipment
4. RaceManagement
situations including agreeing an alternative starting procedure.
wind and projected tidal flows.
4.11. Capsize While Racing: Upon a yacht capsizing it shall be disqualified and the
race awarded to the other yacht, to allow efforts to be concentrated on capsized
yacht.
4.12. Develop Standard Operating Procedures Between Competitors for
Rescue: ACRM shall develop common safety procedures between competitor’s rescue boats, medical personnel, and divers.
5. FutureSailing:EachCompetitormusttakefullandsoleresponsibilityfortheirown sailing arrangements.
6. ExistingACRMAC72SafetyRecommendations(revisedMay22,2013)
Except to the extent that some of the recommendations may have been altered by the above, the AC72 Safety Recommendations notified to competitors on November 21, 2012 as revised on May 22, 2013 (copy below) form part of these Regatta Director recommendations.
Important additional notes to be read in conjunction with the recommendations
Iain Murray
Regatta Director
AC72 Safety Recommendations
(Issued November 21, 2012 & Revised May 22, 2013)
Safety Recommendations that should be implemented immediately
b) A helmet meeting the requirements of RRSAC 40(b) c) At least one knife that is accessible by either hand d) A personal air supply of at least 45 liters
e) A harness with a tether or belay device
• ACRM recommends the following training:
a) Personal air supply training
b) Training which mimics escaping from under the net when the platform is
capsized
c) At least two crew members on board shall have completed First Aid
Training with specific course content focused on treating injuries more likely to occur on board the AC72’s and how to deal with them while out on the water
3. AC72 Equipment
• ACRM recommends the following equipment on the platform:
4. Rescue Boats and Equipment
Safety Recommendations that need to be considered
Attachment A
Team Rescue Boat Minimum Equipment List
Medical Equipment
• Medical backpack
• Comprehensive First Aid Kit
• Spine Board x 1
• 2 x Yellow foam waist rings with tethers • 1 x bag of various pump/air splints
• 1 x small Trauma Kit
Cordage
• 2 x 130 tow rope, 25mm diameter nylon/polyprop, breaking strength of 5 ton. • 1 x 100 meter anchor line, Anchor.12mm polyprop
• 100m of 16mm spare line
Dive Equipment
• 1 x complete dive kit
o BCD with integrated weights
o Fins
o Mask
o 1 x regulator, gauge, low pressure hose
• 1 x drysuit/wetsuit
• 1 x Pony bottle with back harness and single regulator • 2 x 10 liter dive tanks
Salvage Equipment
• Airbags
• 4 x 500 kilo lift
• Trash pump with a flow rate of 1200 L/min or greater
• 1 x cable cutter with long handles capable of cutting rigging away from the platform • Powered abrasive cutter
In the NASCAR-themed epic Talladega Nights, Will Ferrell‘s character explains that prefacing his statements with “With all due respect” allows him to subsequently say whatever he wants (in this specific case, telling his boss “With all due respect, I didn’t realize you’d gotten experimental surgery to get your balls removed.”).
Today’s San Francisco version of “With all due respect” is unfurled by critics of the NASCAR-themed epic that is the America’s Cup: They issue de rigueur wishes for a successful boat race to preface a scathing evisceration of the planning and funding of the event. Sadly, in recent weeks, the definition of “success” was radically altered by the death of British Gold Medalist Andrew Simpson, after Team Artemis’ massive boat broke apart in routine conditions and trapped him beneath it.
Race organizers’ promise that they’d deliver “the crash and burn” of “NASCAR on water” has been one of the few elements of the regatta to go as envisioned — with disastrous results. Now event backers and critics alike will be on pins and needles during races, hoping no one else gets killed.
In the wake of Simpson’s death — and unnamed America’s Cup sailors venting in the New Zealand Herald that the AC72 catamarans are “Godforsaken deathtraps” that should be relegated to “museums and pictures” — race organizers last week opted to sail forward with the event with little deviation from the course at this juncture.
Let’s hope this plan works out. With all due respect, not much has.
The America’s Cup was pitched by erstwhileMayor Gavin Newsom as just the thing to compensate for the 49ers skipping town after spurning his plans for their new stadium to be built atop a radioactive Superfund site.
Rosy economic projections conjured up possibilities of 15 free-spending yachting syndicates taking up residence in San Francisco and helping to generate $1.4 billion in dinero, while providing work for 8,800 locals. These were numbers that inspired even stalwart America’s Cup supporters to tellSF Weekly at the time, “extremely optimistic is an understatement.” But they would be regurgitated, for years, even after the bloom was off the America’s Cup rose.
The promise of San Franciscans being able to remove their socks and shoes and wade through the money was used to justify forking over vast swaths of the city’s central waterfront to yachting billionaire Larry Ellison. This mayorally backed move would have cost the city and port hundreds of millions of dollars — and, SF Weekly reported in 2011, resulted in port staff clandestinely bending the ears of city politicos to halt a plan that would have eviscerated port finances.
Halted it was, leading to a tidier giveaway of less-vast swaths of the northern waterfront. This would have cost the city mere scores of millions of dollars and could have left the port reimbursing Ellison’s heirs into the 22nd century. This plan, too, was abandoned last year on the cusp of an all-but-certain Board of Supervisors’ vote of approval when, per inside sources, Ellison abruptly backed away.
That led to the current, pared-back Cup iteration (like Dr. Who, the regatta manages to regenerate into something new and peculiar every time it dies). In the current plan, the city isn’t reimbursing anyone into the 22nd century. But it’s highly unclear if the city will be reimbursed.
Despite years of unambiguous warnings from budget-minded officials that private America’s Cup fundraisers’ loose obligation to “endeavor” to reach their goal could leave the city holding the bag, just such a scenario manifested itself this year. This was the inspiration for Supervisor John Avalos‘ primal lament that “All the members of the Board of Supervisors were fucking played.”
Along the way, a welder inadvertently incinerated Pier 29, America’s Cup organizers tossed half their staff overboard in a cost-cutting move, preliminary races were nixed, projections confirmed port officials’ fears the Cruise Ship Terminal could be a money pit, teams publicly considered dropping out, and city residents are now menaced by pending appearances of 311 and Train during the America’s Cup Concert Series.
It started with a vision of 15 sailing teams out on the water. Now there are four — and the Jonas Brothers.
Simpson’s death exposes the macabre paradox undermining the sole element America’s Cup cheerleaders and haters could agree on — that the spectacle of massive boats hitting damn near a mile a minute within a few yards of shore would be exhilarating.
In order to maximize the new experience of near-shore yacht racing and create a television audience for an event normally as engaging as chess, organizers pushed the AC72s. There have never been ships like these hulking, cutting-edge marvels – and, now, there may never be again. Their vast power and speed — and the ever-lurking possibility of a fantastic smackup — were selling points; your humble narrator witnessed an America’s Cup official showing a gathering of marine professionals a five-minute “highlight reel” of oversize catamarans colliding, flipping, and sending Lilliputian crew members hurtling into the sea.
This is the essence of “NASCAR on water.”
Perhaps in the future, TV networks might pay to put America’s Cup races on the air – instead of the opposite, which is now the case. The marine professionals, however, didn’t seem overly enthused by the notion of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Yachting, and it remains to be seen how the nautically challenged take to the event. The great risk is that the America’s Cup is now too NASCAR for the yachting crowd and too yachting for the NASCAR crowd.
Of course, sailing these amazing but dangerous ships carries risks of a far graver nature. Let’s hope for no more unsuccessful boat races.
Photos courtesy Wright Auctions.
Long hidden away in a New England attic, a set of blueprints for the futuristic Dymaxion automobile – allegedly the only privately held Dymaxion artifacts – are now seeing the light of day as they head to auction next month.
Collected in a three-ring binder, the set of 18 blueprints all appear to date to 1933 and cover chassis details, metal specifications, and wiring diagrams for the first and second Dymaxion cars, which Buckminster Fuller and Starling Burgess designed and built in the old Locomobile factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The blueprints turned up only recently in the attic of a house in Dudley, Massachusetts; the discoverer then donated the blueprints to filmmaker Noel Murphy, who will use the proceeds from the sale to help finish his documentary on the Dymaxion.
“We don’t know exactly how the blueprints got to that attic, but we can put two and two together,” Murphy said. “When Nannie Dale Biddle Else Foss (a financial backer of the 4D Company, which produced the Dymaxion) ended up with controlling interest in the company, Buckminster Fuller hid Dymaxions No. 2 and 3 at Waterhouse in Webster, Massachusetts. So the best I can figure is that when he hid the cars, he lived in a rooming house near there, and Dudley is just one town over from Webster.”
According to Murphy, the blueprints going up for auction are the only known set of original Dymaxion blueprints outside of Stanford University’s Dymaxion Chronofile archives, which includes the complementing body blueprints for Dymaxion No. 1. “Nothing [original related to the Dymaxion automobile] is in private hands,” Murphy said. “We spent plenty of time and a lot of searching looking for other Dymaxion materials.”
Fuller envisioned the Dymaxion automobile – a front-wheel-drive Ford flathead-powered rear-engine three-wheeler with rear-wheel steering and a teardrop-shaped body – as part of an overall philosophy that combined urban planning, architecture, and social criticism. He enlisted yacht builder Starling Burgess to design the unique vehicle and built three Dymaxions in total: The first became involved in the infamous fatal accident in Chicago, then later became a productmobile for a while before being destroyed by a fire; the second, the only Dymaxion extant, today resides in the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada; and the third was reportedly scrapped during the Korean War in Wichita, Kansas. Crosthwaite and Gardiner recently completed a re-creation of Dymaxion No. 3 for British architect Lord Norman Foster, and Jeff Lane of the Lane Motor Museum has embarked on his own Dymaxion re-creation.
Murphy said that his film, The Last Dymaxion: Buckminster Fuller’s Dream Restored, should be finished in the fall.
The blueprints, which will appear in the Wright Auctions Important Design sale June 6 in Chicago, are estimated to sell for $20,000 to $30,000. For more information, visit Wright20.com.
Two people I have always found most interesting, Starling Burgess was a complicated man, who in my opinion has never been recognized adequately for his genius. His drawings, at Mystic Seaport are marvels. I attended several lectures by Buckminster Fuller when I was young.
From William Sandberg:
The America’s Cup has decided to investigate the Artemis Racing tragedy and has named the Regatta Director, Iain Murray, the same man who said such a disaster was not on the committee’s radar screen, to Chair the investigation.
Let me see, the Army investigated itself in the My Lai massacre and laid all the blame on a Lieutenant. Similarly, the State Department is investigating itself on the Benghazi catastrophe and you can be certain they will get to the bottom of it. Sure, and now the America’s Cup is going to investigate itself too.
Might I suggest that it would have been far better to have a committee led by a person with no vested interest in the Cup, with Mr. Murray serving as liaison. Then look at the committee itself. John Craig and Sally Honey are immensely talented individuals, but one is the event PRO and the other is married to a member of the AC Committee. I’m sure they will do a very professional job, and I have only the greatest respect for both but it would be better if they chose people with no involvement with the Cup at all.
It seems it is business as usual and the show must go on. Very sad time for our sport.
Comment: Since the America’s Cup organizers are certain the event can remain on schedule, it seems safe to assume the accident occurred as a result of something unique to the Artemis Racing boat. Remember that the US Coast Guard has yet to issue an event permit, and likely will not do so if the review committee raises significant concerns about the safety of the sailors. – Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt
Yesterday was my first day on the water this spring. On “Snow Lion” we looked at some new sails and adjusted the compass.
We had a film crew producing a video about New England Boat Works and since “Snow Lion” had been built there I suppose the boat may get a cameo appearance.
I pulled out my deck shoes and discovered that the soles are hard. I tried sanding them, It is as far as I can tell a wise tale that this will fix the problem. My Dubarry sea boots are not far away from needing replacing for the same reason. This prompted me to pull out my old sea boots which I bought in 1962. big and heavy compared to today’s models and cold because there is no liner. However the rubber has not cracked and the soles are still good. Clearly something in the process of producing the rubber has changed.
Once and a while we should think positively. The tragedy of Andrew Simpson’s death has cast a shadow on multihull sailing. Try to remember the good times.
The Golden Gate Yacht Club and America’s Cup organizers are pleased that the work of the America’s Cup Review Committee has begun and that it met with the teams in San Francisco today.
We appreciate the vote of confidence Mr. Bertelli, president of Luna Rossa Challenge, gave to the America’s Cup continuing as planned this summer on San Francisco Bay, during his press conference this afternoon in Alameda.
We are pleased that Luna Rossa has already submitted its suggestions to the Review Committee. We are, however, disappointed that Luna Rossa indicated that it might not follow the Review Committee’s recommendation issued last evening that teams not sail in San Francisco before May 23rd (to allow the Committee time to make further recommendations).
We note that Luna Rossa has already sailed its AC72 yacht in Auckland for some 40 days without incident and are now prepared to sail in San Francisco Bay.
Nonetheless, we expect that the Review Committee’s safety-driven recommendations will be accepted by the teams, and we appreciate Mr. Bertelli’s assurances in that regard during today’s press conference.
The best way forward for the expert Review Committee is to complete its work and publish its recommendations so that we will achieve the safest-possible resumption of AC72 training and racing on San Francisco Bay as soon as possible.
http://tvnz.co.nz/sailing-news/grave-concerns-america-s-cup-video-5434049
Published: 6:05PM Friday May 10, 2013 Source: ONE Sport
The tragic death of Artemis Racing’s Andrew “Bart” Simpson was an accident waiting to happen, according to America’s Cup expert Peter Lester
British Olympic gold medallist Simpson was on board the Swedish AC72 boat when it capsized in San Francisco Harbour today and Lester believes that his death could be just the tip of the iceberg.
“We’ve been saying this now since the 72s were announced that the extreme design, the speed, it’s a disaster waiting to happen that unfortunately has now happened,” sailing commentator Lester told ONE News.
Story continues below…
“We’re not even racing at the moment and you know that when the Louis Vuitton Cup starts and the boats go boat-on-boat the crews will push harder, regardless of the accident that’s happened today because you’re in race mode.
“The boats were only out there training. So I think the risks are going to get even more when you get into the Louis Vuitton Cup because it’s in racing mode.”
The Louis Vuitton Cup, which will involve Team New Zealand, begins in July and there will be a reluctance to change any of the rules, according to Team Korea boat designer Brett Bakewell-White.
“They are able to [change the rules] if they all agree but it’s going to be a problem for them because it doesn’t give them much time to change anything,” Bakewell-White told ONE News.
“The problem is that all the boats have been designed on the premise that this is the configuration and they are going to sail up to 30 knots of breeze so the teams have developed their boats around that.
“So I think there will be a reluctance from the likes of Team New Zealand and Oracle to change anything.”
Commercial pressures
The current wind threshold for racing is 28 knots for the Louis Vuitton Cup and 33 knots for the America’s Cup but that won’t change because of commercial pressures says Bakewell-White.
“As a designer for Team Korea I sat in a lot of the early meetings and the some of the challengers were asking for the wind limit to be reduced because they thought it would be dangerous and Oracle were very much against it purely because the whole thing was being driven by television schedules,” he said.
The scary thing is that the wind was only blowing a mild 20 knots today and in faster conditions, the catamarans could be exposed to more carnage.
“I think it highlights the fact that again getting around the course is important and it is conceivable that you could end up with no boats,” Bakewell-White warned.
“And not actually having an America’s Cup because everyone’s run out of equipment. It’s not likely but it’s possible.”
But the biggest concern for the oldest trophy in sport is that the safety of the competitors is paramount says Lester
“Obviously losing a life is such a huge deal and the reaction to that will be ‘do we need to change the rules to make these boats safer for the crew?”
“And maybe they do, maybe they don’t – I don’t know. Then I think over time the reaction will be the concept of the boats. And the solution the designers have gone to make these boats sailable in San Francisco. Are the boats too big and too powerful?”
Race organizers said Simpson was assigned as the crew’s tactician but also would have been involved in operating winches and performing other tasks necessary to sail the twin-hulled boat.
The crew of Oracle was on the bay for training at the time the Artemis capsized, America’s Cup officials said.
Oracle Team USA’s boat flipped over in a practice run in October, damaging the windsail. But no one was injured, and the vessel was relaunched in January.
The wreck of the Artemis was at least the fourth major accident in just over a year off the California coast or involving California vessels.
In March a crew member was killed when a 30-foot (9-metre) sailboat broke apart in rough seas during a race near San Clemente Island.
In April 2012 four crewmen in a race from Southern California to Mexico died after their yacht ran aground. Two weeks earlier, five sailors died in a racing accident near the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco.
The Farallon incident prompted the Coast Guard to temporarily suspend racing in the Pacific Ocean off northern California.
Cayard spoke briefly to reporters outside the team’s offices in the town of Alameda across from San Francisco.
“We obviously had a tragic day today on the bay. It’s a shocking experience to go through. We have a lot to deal with for the next few days in terms of ensuring everybody’s well-being,” he said.
QUOTABLE: America’s Cup is much riskier than car racing
“At least a race car driver has a steel cage around him. The only protection these guys have are some pads they wear and a helmet. This is too risky a business right now. If the wind is strong and they’re trying to sail as fast as they can go, they’re death traps.” – Naval architect Jerry Milgram, 74, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor emeritus who has helped design America’s Cup racing boats since 1970.
